Careful students of the Gospel of Luke have long been aware of the different “voices” woven into in narrative by its author. “There is a sense,” James M. Dawsey writes, in which the author of the Gospel “backed off from what he told and allowed his characters to speak, to agree and disagree, to use their own language and so to come alive in their story.” Ever sensitive to characterization, the author took care “to dress the people of his story with a proper language. ” Yet it is a mistake to think of the “confusion” of differing voices in Luke merely as expressions of literary style. “What is said in Luke,” professor Dawsey reminds his readers, “is irrevocably intertwined with how it is said. The different voices not only embellish the story; they are the stuff of the story.” The confusion of Luke is purposeful; the purpose is pungently ironic; the irony is exquisite.
Clearing away centuries of cultural debris and unlocking the secrets of an ancient Greek narrative demand the use of tools and skills not easily acquired or quickly applied. Professor Dawsey’s painstaking analysis separates the language of Jesus and his views of events from that of the chief priests, Pharisees, disciples, and other characters in the narrative-and especially from the language and viewpoint of the narrator-and especially from the language and viewpoint of the narrator. “The characters and the narrator of Luke,” Professor Dawsey finds, “are in dialogue with each other and with us. Meaning arises out of that conversation.”